Veterans Nursing Home

Go Upstate reported that Cherokee County will be the home of a state-run veterans nursing home but state funding has not been confirmed. Because the facility will be owned by the state, the $41 million needed for construction will come from the state budget.

Cherokee County County Council purchased a 60-acre parcel of land from the Batts family for $463,000. The county is now in the final stages of transferring the land to the state so that the development process can begin.

“The commitment from the state was that this would be one of the sites they would build on as soon as they were funded,” he said. “We have an eight-year reversal of the land, which means the state has eight years to construct the facility. If they don’t, the land will come back to the county.”

Currently, South Carolina has three state veterans nursing home facilities — E. Roy Stone Veterans Pavilion in Columbia, Veterans’ Victory House in Walterboro and Richard Michael Campbell Veterans Nursing Home in Anderson.

Humphries said with the number of veterans in South Carolina closing in on one million, three facilities are simply not enough. Humphries said veterans and their families are driving 100 miles or more to access existing facilities.

“The bed wait for a state veteran’s nursing home in this state, today, is about six months,” he said. “That’s a big red flag when we have a population of more than 800,000 veterans.”

In addition to the Cherokee County facility, others are planned in Florence County and Columbia, Humphries said.

Each nursing home will have 108 beds, and Humpries said having one in Cherokee County will provide better access for veterans within the county and those in surrounding counties like Spartanburg, York and Chester.